View of the Chigi Chapel

1513-15
Fresco and mosaics
Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome

Raphael handled a very different project for the Chigi Chapel in Santa Maria del Popolo as that in the Chigi Chapel in the Santa Maria del Pace. In the Santa Maria del Popolo he created an imposing ensemble of disparate elements, executed by himself and assistants. Raphael began with the design of the architecture around 1512, with construction and some of the decoration completed four years later. The dome holds an imposing central figure of God the Father, who hovers above the chapel in an audaciously illusionistic pose. The figural decoration of the dome was carried out in mosaics; personifications of the planets are interspersed with gilded stucco ornamentation. Decades later, the planned scenes taken from the Genesis were executed in fresco in the rectangular areas alternating between the windows - painted by the Florentine artist Salviati, who also painted the personifications of the seasons in the pendentives below the dome.